Big Dance success could get the FSU athletic program past academic fraud scandal

COMMENTARY

March 20, 2009|By Mike Bianchi, Sentinel Columnist

BOISE, Idaho -- "Even if we're just dancing in the dark."

Who knew that noted NCAA bracketologist Bruce Springsteen's famous lyric would apply to Florida State's basketball team as the Seminoles prepare for tonight's opening round game against Wisconsin in the NCAA Tournament?

For the first time in more than a decade, the Seminoles will be dancing tonight, but their Boise bossa nova comes in the midst of one of the darkest periods in the history of FSU athletics. Now, more than ever, students, fans, alumni and faculty need something to feel good about. A beacon amid the badness.

This team, this amazing rags-to-riches basketball team, is that something. This is a team that stands for everything FSU has failed to represent over the last few years: Academic excellence, team chemistry, doing things the right way.

How fitting that the long, painful NCAA investigation into scholastic skulduggery just ended and this particular basketball team has emerged from the muck and the mire. Could there be any more powerful cleansing agents to start scrubbing the dirt from the school's soiled image?

Think about it: All we've heard for nearly two years now is about FSU's academic misconduct. Fairly or unfairly, it's been a story that has defined an entire university.

Why is it that the cheaters are always on the front page, whereas the good guys get buried on page D-6? For instance, you probably never even saw the story earlier this week about FSU being one of only seven teams in the NCAA Tournament with a 100 percent graduation rate.

You want academic integrity? Did you know it was actually a basketball player -- a player uncomfortable with the cheating going on in FSU's athletic department -- who blew the whistle and started the NCAA's investigation into academic fraud?

We've spent nearly a decade lamenting Coach Bobby Bowden's underachieving football program, but here's a basketball team that is actually better than the sum of its parts. This is a team picked to finish 10th in the Atlantic Coast Conference; a team expected to be so bad that Hamilton would be fired after this season.

Instead, the Seminoles finished fourth in the ACC's regular-season standings and played for the championship in the ACC Tournament. Forget about Bowden's vacated victories for a few minutes and celebrate the legitimate wins posted by Hamilton's team. The Seminoles are 25-9 and recorded the second-most wins in school history.

Bowden, by the way, hasn't beaten the hated Gators in five seasons and has never beaten Florida's national championship coach Urban Meyer. Hamilton has beaten the Gators three straight times and has a 4-3 record against UF's national championship coach Billy Donovan.

Off the field, FSU's football team last year had players suspended from games for an on-campus brawl and another player kicked off the squad for drunkenly falling asleep behind the wheel of his car at a fast-food drive-thru. Admittedly, the basketball team does have a player in Ryan Reid who was cited before the season for shooting a gun -- except it was a BB gun!

And if you want unselfishness, look no further than FSU's young hoopsters. Too many times during the recruiting process, highly touted freshmen listen to AAU coaches and demand star treatment immediately. These young FSU players -- like McDonald's All-American Chris Singleton -- have deferred to senior point guard Toney Douglas, the only player on the team who averages in double figures.

The entire university should be oozing pride tonight.

These Seminoles may be dancing in the dark, but they are doing their best to lead Florida State's scandal-scarred athletic program back into the light.